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Texas Has Been Kind to Chesapeake Energy’s Exploration Efforts

While Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy is retrenching slightly as it cuts rig counts from 18 to 14 for the remainder of the year, the company still has had success in its exploration in Texas.

The company reported spending $667 million on exploration in the second quarter of 2017, its principal debt balance was nearly $9.7 billion with $13 million cash on hand. That’s a slight improvement from Dec. 31, 2016 when the debt was $10 billion with $882 million cash on hand.

But its wells have been big producers. Chesapeake hit its first upper Eagle ford Shale well. the Blakeway 3 D DIM 2H in June hit a peak of 1,759 boe a day. The company has plans to put up to 100 wells on production in South Texas in the second half of 2017 compared to 61 wells in the first half. It now has seven rigs working the eagle ford shale.

Chesapeake also brought in a gas well in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin with a peak rate of production of 6,629 thousand cubic feet a day.

A well drilled in the Marcellus Shale hit peak production of 61,759 mcf a day after six days of production making it the highest-rate operated well in the Marcellus Shale in Chesapeake’s history. The company stated it “expects to place on production up to 40 wells in the Marcellus Shale in the second half of 2017 compared to 11 wells in the first half of 2017.”